K.C. ELECTRIC ASSOCIATION
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HUGO OFFICE P.O. Box 8 Hugo, CO 80821-0008 STRATTON OFFICE P.O. Box 285 Stratton, CO 80836-0285 HUGO ADDRESS 422 Third Avenue Hugo, CO 80821 STRATTON ADDRESS 281 Main Street Stratton, CO 80836 719-743-2431 [Hugo] 719-348-5318 [Stratton] www.kcelectric.coop [web] BOARD OF DIRECTORS Kevin Penny [president] Robert Bledsoe [vice president] Terry Tagtmeyer [secretary/treasurer] Danny Mills [asst. secretary/treasurer] James Lewis [director] Jim Michal [director] Luanna Naugle [director] Dave Ritchey [director] Marvin Thaller [director] STAFF Tim Power [general manager] Chance Briscoe [office manager] Ben Orrell [member services specialist] Larry Shutte [operations manager] Paul Norris [line superintendent]
2013 Year in Review BY TIMOTHY J. POWER || GENERAL MANAGER
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If variety is the spice of life, During the year, we also then 2013 was definitely a spicy introduced SmartHub to year for K.C. Electric Associaour members. SmartHub tion. is a customer portal on our The year got off to a bang website that allows members with the battle over Senate Bill to pay bills online, report out13-252. This bill mandated an ages and track energy usage, increase in renewable energy among other things. Smartfor co-ops. We currently are Hub is also available as an app required to have 10 percent of on smart phones and tablets. Timothy J. Power our energy purchases come In late summer we sent out from renewables by 2020. This new bill a member satisfaction survey to a random raised that level to 25 percent. Of course sample of just over 1,000 members. More we came out against the bill, especially than 300 responded. We were happy since it was being proposed without any to report in a previous article that we input from the electric cooperatives it received high satisfaction scores. Overall, would be affecting. Some of our K.C. our membership gave us a score of 8.5 Electric board members and I went to satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10. While we the capitol building to testify before the are proud of that mark, we know we can senate committee as to why we were opstill do better. We will continue to work posed to the large increase. After a large hard to make all your dealings with K.C. push back by co-ops and others (namely Electric as positive as possible. agricultural groups) across Colorado, Another thing that kept us busy the bill eventually passed on party lines throughout the year was a discovery and the renewable mandate was set at 20 relating to our territorial boundaries with percent by 2020. Tri-State Generation and Mountain View Electric Association. In Transmission is still trying to determine 1962 the Public Utilities Commission how to best meet the new requirement. had granted Mountain View the right to In June we held our annual meeting in service certain accounts in our terriStratton. Dave Ritchey was re-elected to tory. We also found there were accounts serve Cheyenne County and Marv Thaller that K.C. Electric had asked Mountain was re-elected to serve Lincoln County. View to serve, as it would have been cost We welcomed a new board member, as prohibitive for K.C. Electric to extend its the members voted for Wayne Parrish to line and serve those accounts at the time. represent Kit Carson County. Wayne reAs the K.C. Electric Board of Directors placed Jim Lewis, who had served 18 years contemplated our future growth and on the board. We appreciated Jim’s service how to best meet our members’ electric to K.C. Electric and welcome Wayne to needs, the issue with Mountain View the board. Next year’s annual meeting is accounts and lines within our territory planned for the Cheyenne County Fairwas making it more and more difficult to [continued on page 8] grounds in Cheyenne Wells on June 5. make long-range plans. ColoradoCountryLife.coop January 2014 7